Kamal Nawash falsely denied he was Alamoudi's lawyer after being his friend for a decade

Nawash published paper in 2000 entitled "The US Anti Terrorism Legislation: The Erosion of Civil Rights"
August 14, 2005

MIM:After Alamoudi's indictment Nawash told the media that 'Alamoudi is a moderate Muslim with no ties to terror' When it became obvious that his political career would be jeopardised, the denied he was Alamoudi's lawyer -(even though his name was filed on the affadavit).

WASHINGTON, October 24 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Few hours after the U.S. Justice Department released an 18-count indictment carrying a maximum penalty of 105 years' imprisonment if convicted, prominent U.S. Muslim political activist dismissed the whole case as "politically and personally motivated".

A prominent U.S. Muslim political activist, who helped the Pentagon set up its Islamic chaplain program, was charged Thursday, October 23 with having had financial dealings with Libya, the Justice Department said.

The indictment was handed down by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, said U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Paul J. McNulty

McNultly was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying the charges against Abdel-Rahman al-Amoudi include prohibited financial transactions with Libya, money laundering, misuse of a passport and unlawful procurement of U.S. naturalized citizenship - all had been vehemently denied by the 51-year-old native of Yemen.

"Upon seeing the indictment, he was disappointed and called the case wholly motivated by personal and political agendas," Al-Amoudi's lawyer Maher Hanania told IslamOnline.net by phone Friday, October 24.

Hanania quoted Amoudi as further saying that "the whole case plays into the hands of what he called self-proclaimed pro-Israel Zionist attorney.

"The U.S. Justice Department had placed those attorneys available to go after and insinuate Islamic leaders in the United States," he argued.

The Department had appointed for Amoudi's case Gordon Kromberg, a "self-proclaimed Zionist known for making visits to Israel and supporting its settlement activities in Palestinian territories," according to the lawyer.

Al-Amoudi had earlier provoked the ire a few years ago when he hailed Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah, organizations designated by the U.S. as "terrorist groups" for their anti-Israeli attacks.

Although Al-Amoudi had retracted the statements, Kamal Nawash, a lawyer and a 10-year-old friend to him, had said that the support for the two groups was mentioned in the indictment as "background factual information".

'We Will Prevail'

Hanania said the defense team is confident that "Amoudi will prevail in the case, as all charges in the indictment are baseless with no evidence whatsoever".

Asked about the U.S. media's intensive coverage of the case, Hanania suspected foul play.

"It is only an attempt to create an atmosphere conducive to allegations that every single Arab or Muslim leader in the country is terrorist," he charged.

An energetic advocate of Islamic causes, Amoudi founded the American Muslim Council, the American Muslim Foundation as well as the American Muslim Armed Forces

Admitting al-Amoudi's unauthorized visits to Libya and his receiving donations during the London visit, Hanania said the money are only channeled for "charitable activities".

U.S. citizens are banned from any financial dealings with or travel to Libya under sanctions imposed by former president Ronald Reagan in 1986 in response to terrorist bombings in Rome and Vienna, in which the North African nation was accused of playing a role.

"But under the U.S. law it is not illegal to receive money for charities, Amoudi had led several of which. He received the money as donations. Nothing more, nothing less," the lawyer said.

"We can prove that," he added defiantly.

The indictment, which carries a maximum penalty of 105 years' imprisonment on conviction, alleges that "from November 1995 to September 2003, Alamoudi devised a scheme to obtain money from Libya and other sources overseas".

That money, it alleges, was intended "for transmission into the United States without attracting the attention of various federal agencies, including the Treasury Department, Internal Revenue Service, Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization.

Amoudi had denied the charge, with his lawyer just commenting: "He is just a humanitarian activist, helping Muslims in the States, and everyone of the community is standing by him".

Al-Amoudi led Armed Forces Veterans Affairs Council, a group that helped create an Islamic chaplain program in the U.S. military.

The chaplain program has come under intense scrutiny since the September 10 arrest on suspicion of espionage of US Army Captain James Yee, a Muslim chaplain allegedly worked with al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Amoudi had denied any links to the chaplain.

Hanania said the U.S. authorities have recently convicted a Muslim American, Hanania only named as Al-Beheri, whom the U.S. attorney want the judge, under unsubstantiated terrorist claims, to sentence him to 10 years instead of the maximum for the immigration fraud charges.

"This suggests a pattern of a surge targeting Muslims in the country under claims of terrorist links."

Several representatives of Muslim advocacy groups said that Muslim Americans stand up to a new wave of guilt-by-association schemes by federal law-enforcement agencies and a massive surge of hate crimesand bigotry against Muslims and Arabs in the U.S. since the 9-11 attacks.

The defense team had fielded a motion to get Amoudi a bond hearing last week, it was delayed for Wednesday morning.

Federal authorities said last month that Alamoudi was detainedon September 28 at Washington's Dulles International Airport upon his return from an extended overseas trip and made a brief appearance in federal court in Alexandria the following day.

The detention triggered a furor in the Muslim community, given Amoudi's role in funding some of the Muslim American groups and serving on their boards.

"This is part of a general case of targeting Muslim activistsin the united States using alleged secret evidence," Khaled Toorani of the American Islamic Organization for Al-Aqsa had told IOL shortly after the detention.

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MIM: Besides falsely denying he was Alamoudi's lawyer,Nawash outlined his Islamist agenda with the publication a paper which disingenuously linked civil rights issues with anti terrorism measures. "The US Anti Terrorism Legislation: The Erosion of Civil Rights.

Over the last decade, US law enforcement has focused unfairly on Arab Americans, infringing on their civil rights under the auspices of investigating possible (often highly circumstantial) links to terrorism. Despite the relative rarity of foreign terrorist attacks & the fact that the Oklahoma City bombing was domestically engendered, the 1996 Anti-Terrorism Act is chiefly directed at international terrorist activities, encouraging prosecutions for minor immigration violations & investigations into legitimate humanitarian fund-raising while lowering the government's burden of proof & denying defendants' Sixth Amendment rights. Middle Easterners have been unlawfully detained, prosecuted based on secret evidence, or deemed guilty by association. Grand juries are used to gather intelligence rather than determine probable cause. Proposed legislation would further discriminate against Middle Easterners by limiting the areas in which foreign students would be allowed to study at US universities & facilitating profiles of airline passengers based on ethnicity & country of origin. The author concludes that the need to combat terrorism must be balanced with a renewed commitment to protect civil rights. He urges the reinstatement of the Edwards Amendment to protect lawful speech & political activity. K. Coddon.

Language

English

Publication Year

2000

Publication Type

Journal Article (aja)

Country of Publication

Cyprus

Classification

2884 studies in violence; terrorism. 1636 social control; sociology of law

Update

200212

Accession Number

200205153

MIM: In this article Nawash demonstrates his extraordinary capacity for mendacity by asserting that Alamoudi, who was jailed for 23 years on terrorism related charges "was a liberal Muslims involved in the US military to be part of the politics of America" which can be taken to mean that Muslims who were involved in the US military and believed in Jihad could help to take over America by propagating Islam and recruiting more converts .

Nawash brazenly stated that "Alamoudi has no links to terrorism whatsoever to terrorism", but neglected to mention his friend and client's ties to Al Qaeda which were documented since the 1990's and involvement in numerous terrorist causes worldwide which culminated in his being paid by Libya to orchestrate an assassination plot to kill Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Which begs the question to how much Nawash knew during his decade long friendship with Alamoudi. It should be noted that Nawash's law offices in the 'Wahhabi corridor' were in the same building as the Muslim Student Association, WAMY, and the Muslim World League and in close proximity to Alamoudi's enterprises.

S. Muslim Activist Says Charges ‘Politically Motivated'

By Mustafa Abdel-Halim, IOL Staff

CAIRO, October 1 (IslamOnline.net) – Prominent Muslim American activist Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi, who was detained by federal authorities for making unauthorized trips to Libya and dealing with "terrorist groups" repudiated the accusations as "politically motivated" lies, one of his lawyers said.

"I phoned Amoudi after the detention, and he realized that it is a part of a politically-motivated prosecution that has nothing to do with the charges leveled against him," Ashraf Nubani told IslamOnline.net over the phone from the States.

Nubani challenged the federal authorities to have any evidence substantiating the charges against Amoudi, who made a brief appearance at the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia on Monday few hours after his arrest at Dulles International Airport upon his return from an extended overseas trip.

A special agent of the U.S. immigration service told the court, in affidavit after the arrest, that Amoudi received and transferred and otherwise dealt in funds from the Libyan permanent mission at the United Nations.

Amoudi also denied in another telephone call with another of his attorneys that claims he had admitted to British investigators receiving money from a man "with a Libyan accent".

"He told me this is untrue, " said Kamal Nawash told IOL over the phone.

But Nawash declined to comment on the claims, also in the affidavit, that Amoudi made at least 10 trips to Libya using American and Yemeni passports.

Nawash hoped the trial of his client "would be fair and just," denying the detention has anything to do with Amoudi's criticisms of the Bush administration.

"He is just a liberal Muslim, who wants more Muslims to be involved in the U.S. military and politics to be part of America," he asserted.

Amoudi is one of the founders of the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council, a group that helped create an Islamic chaplain program in the U.S. military, a relation that reportedly raised suspicions of his ties to a Muslim chaplain earlier arrested allegedly for spying at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But Nawash quoted his client as denying this charge as baseless, and said the links are rather ridiculous to make.

"He said he has not had any collaboration with James Yee or presented a forged certificate for him to become a Muslim chaplain in the U.S. military," said the lawyer.

The chaplain program has come under intense scrutiny since the September 10 arrest of Yee, as two senators called for a full investigation of "terrorists' attempts" to recruit members of the U.S. Armed Forces.

No Terror Links

Nawash also said Amoudi vehemently denied connections with terrorist groups as charged.

U.S. Assistant Attorney Steve Ward was quoted by the Washington Post Wednesday, October 1, as saying that Amoudi had a more direct connection with terrorist organizations designated by the U.S. as "terrorist groups", including Palestinian resistance groups and Lebanon's Hezbollah party.

"Amoudi has no links whatsoever to violence or terrorism. On the contrary, he supported the U.S. war on terrorism," maintained his lawyer.

The affidavit cited the Muslim activist's comments at a rally in front of the White House in October 2000 in which he voiced his support for Hezbollah and Hamas.

It alleged that the $340,000 Amoudi was carrying when he was detained in London in August en route to Syria "was intended for delivery in Damascus to one or more of the terrorists or terrorist organizations active in Syria."

Palestinian groups have long insisted that they are struggling to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, while Hezbollah had played a central role in ending the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon in May, 2000 – though Israel still occupies the strategic Shebaa Farms area in southern Lebanon and Syria's Golan Heights.

Amoudi reportedly sat calmly throughout the Monday hearing, occasionally shaking his head in disbelief as the affidavit was given.

‘Political Detention'

The detention triggered a furor in the Muslim community, given Amoudi' s role in funding some of the Muslim American groups and serving on their boards.

"This is part of a general case of targeting Muslim activists in the united States using alleged secret evidence," Khaled Toorani of the American Islamic Organization for Al-Aqsa told IOL nine hours after Amoudi's detention.

Toorani warned that these arrests would draw the United States back to a stage of political detention it has never seen since some 50 years.

Nawash, one of Amoudi's lawyers, said he received "hundreds of calls that still unabated asking about Amoudi".

"It sent shockwaves here," he said, warning that the U.S. strict measures should not "confuse good people for bad ones."

Nubani said the detention also does a "very bad service to Washington as it discredits all official assurances that there is no war on Islam or Muslims".

Public pressure must be put on US government officials to intervene with > the Israeli authorities on behalf of these Americans. ADC Legal Director > Kamal Nawash recently appeared on a TV call-in show hosted by Armstrong > Williams on the America's Voice Network to highlight the unjust and > inhumane treatment of Arab Americans in Israel.

> These Americans are being subjected not only to abusive and inhumane > treatment by a government that is dependent on US aid and diplomatic > support, but they are being singled out for abuse because of their > ethnicity. They are being subjected to the same laws of military > occupation which the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza who live under > Israeli rule must suffer, while Israelis settlers and Americans of other > ethnic backgrounds in the Occupied Territories remain protected by the > provisions of Israeli civil law and civil court system. A large > proportion of US aid to Israel is military aid, effectively underwriting > the military courts that will sit in judgement of these Americans who have > been referred to such substandard courts on the basis of their ethnic > origin.